D.A.B day 6
Smell the roses
I've got more energy today, although I am sore. I don't think the coconut helped that much, but hey, at least it was something. I'll place the repaired fish trap and check the other one, and collect more slate for a few trips so I have all the slate I need for my roof. I will do many slate and driftwood runs, and since I carry the slate in my backpack I will bundle drift wood on my shoulder for the kiln. I will need lots of dry wood and I need to stack up. I've realised that I haven't really looked at the trees in the jungle except for dangerous movement and animals, so I decide to make that new trap for that animal track, and improve the other trap too. Before climbing up on the last trip, I will take a short careful exploration inside the jungle, and then go look for those berries on the ridge.
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I sit hugging my knees thinking about Dino planet lesson number... something. Fuck, it's hard to focus, and that was a bad choice of words. Some pretty flowers are dangerous even though I didn't get that close. There are many pretty yellow-purple flowers with a weird smell in that jungle. I thought it was pretty, but obviously I carefully avoided them as I explored, and I found quite a few coconut trees and many coconuts lying on the ground, and trees with a kind of weird looking fruit. Then I realised I had a hard-on and it was getting hard to focus as I was getting horny as hell, so I quickly left. Just my luck to find some kind of super viagra drug flower inside the jungle.
"Real funny you Damn Alien Bastards. Fucking assholes."
Shit. Avoid the F word. My mind is kind of fuzzy and I kind of really want to jerk off. Bet the Alien bastards would like to see that. What would have happened if I got a good deep wiff? Would I jerk off like crazy? Trying to have sex with an animal? Oh man, that just like those damn alien bastard to try to lure me to ignore safety and try to fuck a raptor or something.
Fucking hilarious.
Shit. Smelling the fish my trap caught doesn't help. I don't need even a hint of distant association right now.
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As the shadows are getting long I make another note in my notepad. 26 hours and 3 minutes seems to be the actual length between days. So instead of having to reset my watch every day, I add a timer with 26 hour 3 minute countdown. I will start it at noon, and set another timer so I get a warning when that time arrives. I've realised that a better and faster way to figure out the length of a year is to use an easy to find star low over the horizon, and track it night after night lined up with the same feature. This planet will revolve around the local star, but distant stars are so far away they practically don't move and are parallel to this solar system. The day side of the planet is always towards the local star, and a day is the planets rotation around its axis. So I could use star as a fixed point, and time how much the position change over a few days. A couple of weeks would be better, but the Star might disappear from sight and so on. Astronomy isn't really my thing. There is that issue about change being sinusoidal, but if I chose the right star about 90 degree away from the sun, or maybe two stars 90 degree apart, that will be partially compensated for and basically there will be a regular angular slash time difference compared to the day, and that difference will add up to 360 degrees over a year. If it is exactly 1 degree, a year will have 360 days. If it is 0.5 degree a year will have 720 days. I don't expect to figure the days per year out exactly on the day, but an approximation for how long a year is here will be very nice to know, so I will start tonight.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Another thing I've realised is that the planetary rings are around the equator, and it will help me figure out how close to the equinox I am since they should line up towards the sun during the spring and autumn equinox, and also help me figure out how much the planets axle tilts, I just have to think about the details some more, and probably doodle with charcoal or something. I don't know if that really helps me figuring out other facts, like the planets diameter and such, since I don't know anything about the rings diameter. At least it is something to have in mind, and if I ever reach the equator it should be damn obvious as the rings will form a line across the sky.
My kiln and forge have had two warm days with good circulating air to dry so I start a fire. I'm getting better with this bow drill and making a fire, and the kiln is started with a slow fire to really dry it out and preheat it and I watch the fire as I drill more holes in tiles. When I have a bunch of roof slate done, I climb up and attach them, and work my way towards the sea side, although the fronts three special layers have almost been completed. I continue working adding tile after tile while I still have light. At least I tried to focus on making holes in tiles, so I now got more than half a roof that have a bit of a large camouflage pattern over it, and I've tried to make the seam against the rock watertight by overhang and sticking clay on the rock with a folded leaf to make a gap to the slate. My roof frame will probably see some movement, so a small gap is good. I just care about having the rain end up on the roof instead of following the rock wall inside.
The finished front walls helps against the wind even without window shutters. This is starting to look like a hut, and the part of roof that is finished feels solid enough. I no longer need to use my leaf shelter for rain protection and it will feel weird sleeping without it tonight. The down side is that it is much darker in my hut. That large gap up high with the view towards the sea will help with light, but a future loft will block that light. So I might make a smooth wide eyebrow dormer with a wide window to increase light. I can start high and gradually lift the roof up until I have a 2-3dm high and a meter wide window that smoothly flow out to the sides. Like a flattened bulge.
I will make a race tomorrow to finish the roof and fire my kiln. And make a temporary door. I bet something nasty will try to sneak in just before I finish this hut if I leave a large opening over night, and I'm a bit worried about that for this night. I've started to put that passage block into place since I got it finished, but this world suck and there is probably other threats like huge fucking snakes. Or small and really poisonous ones.
"Awh shit, I forgot about spiders. I might not have seen either a snake or spider, but I bet they are out there. Just waiting. I need to be more careful about grabbing things and checking my shoes before putting them on and so on."
The open area in front of the wall and cliffs at least makes the hut practically impossible to see from the trail below unless someone is ridiculously tall, but I will probably use clay to add a bit of lip and make a planter box so the leaves can hang down and poke up and make it even harder to see from below, and I will try to design new railing that blends in better and looks more natural and accidental. Just another dead end, nothing to see here.